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Best Practices and Benchmarks Revealed at amerimold 2013

In addition to some mold design best practices, the results of a 2013 North America Tool Shop Benchmark Survey were revealed during a Knowledge Center presentation by Cimatron Technologies.

After Ralph Picklo of Cimatron reviewed some strategies for thinking process not features when it comes to technology investment and implementation--such as make your goal shorter delivery times; don’t move bottlenecks from one department to another; don’t select a product for latest bells & whistles; establish a streamlined processfrom the quote to the finished product, etc.--he revealed its latest benchmark survey resutls.

This benchmark survey presents metrics and related business practices that allow tool shop owners and managers to compare their organization’s performance and practices to their peers.
The results presented here are based on responses collected through an online survey from 370 professionals from North America, the majority of them in tool shop ownership and management positions.

Some of the key findings of the survey include:

• As many as 73% of the shops that participated in the survey plan to hire additional employees in the coming year. At the same time, finding qualified workers is the top challenge over half (54%) of the tool shops surveyed face.

• The health of the business seems to be improving, as half of the tool shops surveyed saw an increase in the number of quotes they issued in the past year, and close to half of survey respondents (46%) believe the price of tooling has increased in the past 5 years.
• At the same time, 45% of the respondents say they face stronger competition compared to 5 years ago and 35% of the respondents win only 1-2 out of every 10 quotes they provide.

• Over half (59%) of the shops surveyed invested in new software in the past year. 40% of these shops intend to invest even more in the next 12 months.

• 44% of the tool shops were able to reduce their delivery times over the past 2 years.